A recent Apple convert, Karthik loves to write human stories in a world enabled by technologies. He has donned many hats in The Hindu, at both the Reporting and Internet sections. He was the editor,...
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India is at second place after the US in terms of the government requests for user data from Google

The Indian government made the second largest demand for Web user information — next only to the United States government — to Google in the six-month period from January to June this year, according to the ‘Transparency Report’ published by the Web services major on Tuesday.

During the six-month period, the Indian government — both by way of court orders and by way of requests from police— requested Google to disclose user information 2,319 times over 3,467 users/accounts. Google fully or partially complied with the request to the tune of 64 per cent. Only the U.S. government requested more data during the period — 7,969 requests over 16,281 accounts, compliance rate: 90 per cent.

It is the sixth time Google has brought out the bi-annual report detailing its interactions with the world government agencies. It details two categories of interactions : requests to divulge user data; and requests to pull down content. India ranked seventh in the list of requests to pull down data; experts say that the possible reason could be the government not having such powers under the Constitution.

Pranesh Prakash, policy director with Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society, said that the Google report was a damning indictment of the country’s government exceeding its constitutional bounds by demanding removal of material for defamation, government criticism, etc., without a valid court order. “There are no laws in our country that allows the executive or the police to remove such material without a court order.”

Substantial spike

In all, 33 countries figure in the report. There was a substantial spike when compared to previous reports with respect to the number of requests from various governments to pull down content.

“In the first half of 2012, there were 20,938 inquiries from government entities around the world. Those requests were for information about 36,614 accounts,” wrote Dorothy Chou, Google’s senior policy analyst, on the Official Google Blog while presenting the report. “The number of government requests to remove content from our services was largely flat from 2009 to 2011. But it’s spiked in this reporting period. In the first half of 2012, there were 1,791 requests from government officials around the world to remove 17,746 pieces of content.”

Google is leading the cause for voluntary disclosure of the interactions it has with the governments. Other web services that put out similar transparency reports include micro-blogging site Twitter; cloud storage service Dropbox; and social networking site Linkedin.

Mr. Prakash said it was not enough if just the web services put out such reports. “The telecom service providers must voluntarily come out with such information,” he added.

“There is a dearth of public information about the amount of legal interception and surveillance. This does not bode well in a democratic polity.”

@Rajasekar - Google actually does a good thing by publishing its transparency report. They are open about the fact that the government is performing surveillance- as opposed to hiding the fact.
It is up to us as citizens to question our leaders as to why this is the case, but then nobody cares about privacy in India.

from:
Rex

Posted on: Nov 15, 2012 at 13:43 IST

Unfortunately, Mr Rajasekar Thunghabadra is correct on the facts. Google has collaborated with Indian police by handing over IP addresses of users who have not violated any laws but only expressed critical views or exposed frauds through their whistle-blowing. This has happened for both blogs under "blogspot" and also Orkut and gmail all under Google. The police have then passed the IP addresses directly to complaining parties who used it to harass and frame the whistleblowers and critics. These are all recorded in naavi's site, reports on techgoss (India) and techdirt (USA) about indian school singapore blog, reports on esys chandigarh, jay polychem samdeep case etc but not at all thoroughly researched !

from:
Kumar

Posted on: Nov 15, 2012 at 12:37 IST

Soon goverment will install a special GPS and find what every indias are doing. But few exceptions are there, politicians, CBI, ABC, DEF,...etc They can do what every they want, everything will be off the record.

from:
Arun Trichy

Posted on: Nov 15, 2012 at 10:56 IST

Other major sites like Yahoo! and Facebook should also publish such information so people know how much their govt's are snooping on their online activities and how much these sites value privacy of their users.

from:
Rajesh

Posted on: Nov 15, 2012 at 07:55 IST

The British sure did a good job in sentencing Indian society to a perpetual 'police' state. Our post-colonial history is rife with both the police and politicians working hand in glove to monitor, report and control our society. However it is a disgrace that firms like Google have no qualms in working with our netas and their henchmen: the police in acceding to their demands. It is of interest to note that Google perpetuates this, 'surveillance' state by blocking searches emanating from anonymous IP addresses. Google by bleating about government interference actually is a party to this, but prefers to assume the role of an impartial judge. Where is the RTI petitions to stop us from sliding to a third Reich (or rather a US like)police state? Who watches the watchers?

from:
Rajasekar Thunghabadra

Posted on: Nov 15, 2012 at 02:23 IST

Can anybody suggest where a user can report inappropriate content on internet ? I often come across the youtube videos or blogposts which promotes communalism, castiesm, hatred and violence. I have done "REPORT as ABUSE" in the cases this option was available but in some places no such option is available. Is there any Govt. portal or authority where such content could be reported and thus removed and action taken against the people who in the name of freedom of speech are spreading hatred.